BOYS BASKETBALL: BHS Claims Share of Bay Title

The Score: Burlingame 54, El Camino 42.

The Star: Burlingame High’s Kyle Shaffer, who stepped up when Rodrigo Puliceno was saddled with early foul trouble. Shaffer led all scorers with 17 points and had several key rebounds as the Panthers clinched a share of the Peninsula Athletic League Bay Division title.

The Turning Point: After El Camino’s Elijah White cut the Panthers’ lead to five late in the third quarter, Burlingame’s Stephen Johnson drilled a 3-pointer just before the buzzer to give his team a 39-31 advantage and helped settle down the visitors going into the final period.

The Quote: "Kyle really stepped up for us -- we are really proud of him.” – Burlingame coach Jeff Dowd, on the contributions senior post Kyle Shaffer made in Wednesday’s win.

What's Next? Burlingame plays at second-place Menlo-Atherton on Friday at 7:45 p.m. with a chance to clinch the PAL Bay title outright. in the teams' earlier league meeting.

The Bottom Line: The Panthers could have easily collapsed in the second half with Puliceno in foul trouble and their inside game struggling while El Camino was charging back from 16 points down. But these are the kinds of games Burlingame is going to need to win once the postseason begins later this month and it just proved to itself that it can overcome adversity in critical situations. Right now, the Panthers may be the team no one wants to face in the Central Coast Section playoffs.

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The Burlingame High boys basketball team took another big step toward claiming the Peninsula Athletic League Bay Division’s outright championship on Wednesday night.

Now, only one team and one win stand between the Panthers and their goal.

Burlingame held off a late rally to defeat host El Camino 54-42 thanks mostly to the efforts of Kyle Shaffer, who led all scorers with 17 points while the Panthers’ scoring leader Rodrigo Puliceno struggled with early foul trouble.

“Kyle really stepped up for us,” Panthers head coach Jeff Dowd said. “We are really proud of him.”

After Puliceno had picked up two first-period fouls that sent him to the bench, Shaffer struck for six huge points on the interior while Stephen Johnson – who finished with 13 points – scored 10 first-half points, including a pair of 3-pointers. Even without their big man in the middle, the Panthers (18-3, 7-0 PAL Bay) continued their game plan with ease in the first half.

“That is always our goal,” Dowd said. “Establish the inside and set up our outside shooting off of it.”

Even without Puliceno, Burlingame, No. 2 in , was able to build up its lead to as much as 16 points before settling for a 31-18 lead at halftime.

"You can’t play a first half like we did tonight against a team as good as Burlingame and hope to win,” said El Camino assistant coach Archie Junio, who along with the other assistants for the Colts filled in for absent head coach Anthony Khoo. “In the first half, we came out flat. No energy at all.”

Elijah White – who led the Colts with 16 points – scored seven points in the first half, single-handedly keeping El Camino (12-9, 3-4) within range of Burlingame in the first 16 minutes. White, along with Anthony Knight sparked a huge third-quarter rally that saw the Colts pull to within five points late in the third period.

Knight scored all 10 of his points in the second half, attacking the basket while White scored from the outside. It was a 3-pointer by White with 49 seconds left in the period that pulled the Colts to 36-31.

“We played our game in the second half,” Junio said. “We played fast and scored on the transition.”

But Johnson’s period-ending three and Shaffer’s 11 second-half points proved to be too much to overcome. And while Puliceno was hit with his third foul early in the third period, he still contributed five points and played solid defense. He even managed to not pick up his fourth foul despite playing all but the last minute of the second half.

“We almost took him out of the game after the third foul,” Dowd said. “But he did a great job keeping his composure and kept playing hard.”

The Panthers will now travel to second-place Menlo-Atherton on Friday where a win over the Bears will secure the outright championship.

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Burlingame 54, El Camino 42

B – 16 15 8 15 -- 54

EC -- 7 11 13 11 – 42

B: Bailey 1 0-0 2, Feinberg 1 1-2 4, Otus 1 0-0 2, Grotz 2 0-0 5, Johnson 4 2-2 13, Puliceno 2 5-8 9, Loew 1 0-0 2, Shaffer 7 3-4 17. Totals 19 11-16 54.

EC: San 1 0-0 3, White 5 3-3 16, Knight 5 0-0 10, Marthiessen 1 1-1 3, Santos Jr. 1 0-0 2, Lee 1 0-1 3, Tuason 1 0-0 2, Smith 1 0-0 3. Totals 16 4-5 42.

3-point goals: B: Johnson 3, Grotz, Feinberg. EC: White 3, San, Lee, Smith.

Records: Burlingame 18-3, 7-0 PAL Bay. El Camino 12-9, 3-4.